While PowerPoint lets you attach a connector to any slide object, these connectors can only be attached to wherever you see an anchor point on the slide object. The good news is that you can add new anchor points for shapes and text boxes. For text placeholders though, you cannot add new anchor points. If you need more anchor points for pictures, it is suggested that you use any shape as a container for a picture fill, and add anchor points as required for the container shape. We have now established that you can add new anchor points for shapes (and text boxes) so that your connectors can be linked to exactly where you want them to be!

PowerPoint provides plenty of options to format Shape Outlines, and this tutorial explores an attribute that’s rarely associated with shape outlines but can provide a surprisingly different look, especially when applied to lines that are thicker in weight. This attribute, Gradient Outlines is not accessible from the Shape Outline gallery in the Ribbon but directly from the Format Shape Task Pane.

By default, all text that you add within PowerPoint may be filled up with a solid color. And while that’s predictable and good, there are some other options that you may want to explore, especially for title text or anything that uses text in a larger point size. One alternative is text filled with a gradient—this can look contemporary and classic, or even ghastly and gaudy!

There are so many shapes in PowerPoint, from the basic Rectangle and Oval to the fancy Pie and Smiley Face! You can use these shapes as they are, or you can use the Merge Shape commands to create your own unique shapes. However, even if you do not create new shapes, there are some existing shapes that can be used in myriad ways. One of these is the Arc shape, that we will explore today. The Arc shape is quite easy to use, and in fact, you’ll find so much similarity between how the Arc and the Pie shapes appear and work—and some difference too.

Font size does make a difference for the aesthetics of your slide, but what do you do if the text itself uses more or less space than you may want? Sometimes, you may want the text to take just a wee bit lesser space so that all content can fit within two lines rather than three. If you would like to alter the spacing between text characters, you can do so by using PowerPoint’s Character Spacing option, which affects the appearance and readability of both title and body text. Essentially Character Spacing is the amount of space in-between individual letters. You can easily adjust this spacing for a cleaner look or to make more or less text fit within any text container.

PowerPoint provides so many basic shapes within the Shapes gallery. All of these shapes can be used in many ways, and that in itself works most of the time. Yet there are plenty of other shapes that are not provided within the Shapes gallery but you can easily modify an existing shape a wee bit to end up with something you need. A semi-circle is a perfect example of such a shape.

If PowerPoint represents something more than anything else, it is the slide—and while you can use a white slide bereft of any graphic treatment, more often than not you will want to use something else. That’s because the background elements of a slide are a representation of the brand of your company, or even an expression of your personality.

In PowerPoint parlance, the background is just one choice that you must make to create that complete appearance. You will also need to explore fonts, colors, effects, slide layouts, and more. And all of these elements must work together to create and represent a cohesive brand. Here, we only explore backgrounds, and more importantly how you would create them within Adobe Photoshop.

PowerPoint allows you to customize the Ribbon in a number of ways. You can add Ribbon tabs, add Groups, and populate these with commands. And if you think you made a mess and were better off with the defaults, then you can always get back to square one. On a more positive front, you can share your customizations with friends and colleagues, or also your other computers. And you can export your customizations to a file saved as a backup for a rainy day!

PowerPoint 2013’s user interface has changes galore, as soon as the application is launched you see the new Presentation Gallery. Then when you create a new presentation, you’ll notice that all the slides are now set by default to widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios. Another very obvious change that does not make too many people happy is the new bright orange interface. Fortunately, this can be changed to a more subtle grey. Optionally you can get tattooed interfaces by applying Office Backgrounds. If these cosmetic changes were not enough, have you noticed that the tab names on the Ribbon are all in CAPs? It’s almost as if PowerPoint is shouting!

Fortunately we don’t have to bemoan without providing you with a solution! Although these Ribbon labels are in CAPs text case, you can change to whatever case you desire. This will provide the PowerPoint interface with a much more cleaner look.

Clip Art tab of the Media Browser shows the clip art that is installed as part of Microsoft Office 2011. You will notice that the clip art collection is divided into convenient categories. Here, you can add/remove clip art graphics within the existing categories and even create a new category. This process of adding new categories, or customizing the existing categories is not done within PowerPoint or another Microsoft Office program.